One of the most common interfaces between a user and a computer or a computer controlled device is a conventional mouse detecting 2D movements of the mouse on a suitable flat surface and providing corresponding signals to a computer for moving a pointer on a display. Despite of that, a conventional mouse includes buttons for positioning a pointer, selecting data, opening and closing windows or menus for further selections, stating and closing programs or applications and entering commands in various situations. Furthermore, a computer mouse may include other functions, e.g. the scrolling function which is often realised by means of a scrolling wheel.
A mechanical mouse includes a ball inside the mouse frame, the bail being rolled on a flat surface and its movements being detected by sensors outside the ball. The technology is normally opto-mechanical or fully optical. In an optical mouse an optical sensor is monitoring microscopic features of a suitable surface to register motions of the mouse. The surface is lit with a LED, for example, and the sensor takes and compares successive images of the surface to detect the motions.
During recent years, also wireless technology have been applied to mice. In a widely used technology, a low-power, low-speed wireless link is formed between a mouse and a USB unit connected to a host computer. Today, Bluetooth technology is becoming a standard for wireless communication between electric devices. Bluetooth adapters connectable to USB connectors, for example, are available. Also computers and other electric devices with an integrated Bluetooth interface are available and this is becoming a standard solution, too. Accordingly, also mice provided with a Bluetooth interface are already available.
Various proposals have been presented to apply accelerometers, angular rate sensors, gyroscopes, generally speaking 3D motion detection, to computer mice, in many cases applying also wireless technology at the same time. Development of so called MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) technologies offer good tools for realising above mentioned solutions. Such proposals have been made in U.S. Pat. No. 4,787,051, U.S. Pat. No. 4,839,838, U.S. Pat. No. 5,181,181, WO 01/90877 A1, US 2004/0066371 and EP 1103884 A1.
There have been problems to realise a computer mouse utilising accelerometers for motion detection. These problems may be overcome by using certain additional sensors and algorithms for processing the sensor data, for example.
Another problem is that the solutions still include a lot of separate parts assembled mechanically together to form the device. The devices using new technical solutions are more expensive than the conventional ones but, in fact, give no remarkable advantages.
In our opinion, the most serious problem is the lack of such a novel concept of a user operable device, e.g. mouse, which would make possible to utilise the above considered new technologies for realising a simple and low cost device which could be a new basic solution displacing the conventional mechanical and optical mice.